blog hop

What is a blog hop? Basi­cal­ly, it’s a way for read­ers to dis­cov­er authors new to them. I hope you’ll find new-to-you authors whose works you enjoy. On this stop on the blog hop, you’ll find a bit of infor­ma­tion on me and one of my books and links to three oth­er authors you can explore!

I send my thanks, admi­ra­tion and grat­i­tude to fel­low indie authors Melanie Edmonds and Matthew Williams for invit­ing me to par­tic­i­pate in this event. I found Melanie online a few years ago when I stum­bled upon her ser­i­al called Star­walk­er. I was imme­di­ate­ly impressed by the qual­i­ty of her writ­ing and her very pres­ence. I’m still impressed. Since then she and I have become great col­leagues and co-con­trib­u­tors of Yuva, an anthol­o­gy about space trav­el and col­o­niza­tion that Matthew Williams and I con­ceived of sev­er­al months ago.

Matthew “Awe­some Sauce” Williams is the most wicked­ly pro­lif­ic author/bloggers I’ve ever known. I envy his verve and tal­ent. He is an absolute inspi­ra­tion and the the per­son I look to when I need a lit­tle push to keep writ­ing. We are cur­rent­ly co-edi­tors and co-con­trib­u­tors of the Yuva Anthol­o­gy. More to come on that lat­er.

In this blog hop, I and my fel­low authors, in their respec­tive blogs, have answered ten ques­tions about our book or work-in-progress (giv­ing you a sneak peek). We’ve also includ­ed some behind-the-scenes infor­ma­tion about how and why we write what we write: the char­ac­ters, inspi­ra­tions, plot­ting and oth­er choic­es we make. I hope you enjoy it!

You know what? I don’t know the answer to that. At the time that I wrote An Unpro­duc­tive Woman I’d been watch­ing a lot of Niger­ian dra­mas most of which (at the time) typ­i­cal­ly cen­tered very dra­mat­i­cal­ly around fam­i­ly and mar­riage mat­ters.

3. What genre does your book come under?

Hmm. I can think of three that fit An Unpro­duc­tive Woman per­fect­ly: Women’s Fic­tion, Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Fic­tion, and Con­tem­po­rary Fic­tion.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your char­ac­ters in a movie ren­di­tion?

I love that ques­tion and it is very dif­fi­cult to answer. Let’s see… hmm… well…

One man’s failed faith and secret quest to right old wrongs threat­ens to destroy his life but instead brings him full cir­cle.

Sheesh, I’m out of breath say­ing that. How about you?

6: Is your book self-pub­lished, pub­lished by an inde­pen­dent pub­lish­er, or rep­re­sent­ed by an agency?

An Unpro­duc­tive Woman is self pub­lished and is cur­rent­ly avail­able through Ama­zon or Cre­ate­Space. For the record, start­ing today and for the next two weeks you can sign up to win a signed copy of An Unpro­duc­tive Woman over at Good reads.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your man­u­script?

I’m not cer­tain how long it took me to write the first draft, it being so long ago, but from start to fin­ish includ­ing edit­ing it took me about two years. Then after about a year of try­ing to get a pub­lish­er, An Unpro­duc­tive Woman sat in a box for about ten years before I final­ly decid­ed to do some­thing with it.

Am I aging myself?

8: What oth­er books would you com­pare this sto­ry to with­in your genre?

Hon­est­ly I can’t make any good com­par­isons, but I have found my book on this list on Goodreads. I am in the com­pa­ny of some great cul­tur­al reads such as Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Khaled Housseni’s The Kite Run­ner and anoth­er of his books, A Thou­sand Splen­did Suns. I’ve read Hous­sei­ni and I think he is a genius. I’d nev­er com­pare myself to him, but I am def­i­nite­ly hon­ored to be on that list among some lit­er­ary heavy hit­ters.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

What I can say for cer­tain is that at the time when I wrote An Unpro­duc­tive Woman I was work­ing out a lot of inter­nal demons in terms of my fam­i­ly and also spir­i­tu­al­ly. Writ­ing An Unpro­duc­tive Woman was cathar­tic and odd as it may sound, I gleaned a lot of strength from the tit­u­lar char­ac­ter Asabe, and I learned loads about for­give­ness by tak­ing Adam through the paces. I was emo­tion­al­ly invest­ed in each of the char­ac­ters even when they were behav­ing bad­ly.

10: Are you writ­ing any­thing else that peo­ple might be inter­est­ed in?

I’ve hint­ed that I wrote An Unpro­duc­tive Woman sev­er­al years ago, at least fif­teen. While I feel that the sto­ry is time­less, I’m not. Ha! Today I am work­ing on a project called The Hin­ter­land Chron­i­cles. I am unsure how many install­ments there will be, but I am plan­ning on at least three short nov­els (about 75,000 words each) all tak­ing place in the same “world”. The Hin­ter­land Chron­i­cles, or some ver­sion of it has been with me for at least five years and has come to me in dis­con­nect­ed bits and pieces here and there. Only recent­ly did any of it make sense to me and I recent­ly stat­ed com­mit­ting words to paper. Drop back by here some­time to check out the progress meter over in the right hand mar­gin. I also plan to post shorts from this WIP on occa­sion to keep appetites whet. The Hin­ter­land Chron­i­cles will be an entire­ly dif­fer­ent genre than An Unpro­duc­tive Woman and is best char­ac­ter­ized at this time as dystopi­an SF.

Who’s next on the NEXTBIGTHINGBLOGHOP?

So glad you asked! Below you will find authors who will be join­ing me by blog, next Wednes­day. Do be sure to book­mark and add them to your cal­en­dars for updates on Works in Progress and New Releas­es! Hap­py writ­ing and read­ing!

Ale­sha Esco­bar — She is the tal­ent­ed author of the Gray Tow­er Tril­o­gy. The Tower’s Alchemist, which is the first book in the tril­o­gy is cur­rent­ly avail­able for free on Ama­zon. Check it out if you like fun, adven­ture and his­tor­i­cal fan­ta­sy.

Court­ney Worth Young — She writes YA para­nor­mal fan­ta­sy, is a cof­fee afi­ciona­do, geek, and voice actress. Hmm. Voice actress. Her nov­el After the Woods will debut in May 2013, so keep your eyes wide open and mark your cal­en­dars.

Nadine Duc­ca — She went from med­ical trans­la­tion to writ­ing. That makes sense to me. And it’s a good thing. Nadine is the author of Serv­ing Time which will soon be avail­able. The cov­er reveal was just a few days ago so hop on over to her site to see what it looks like. Should be excit­ing, yeah?